


Neon Mugs and Newspaper Clippings

by Achrya



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Implied Sexual Content, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-03
Updated: 2015-12-03
Packaged: 2018-05-04 18:19:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5343854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Achrya/pseuds/Achrya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes Phil misses Nick’s old place in DC.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Neon Mugs and Newspaper Clippings

Sometimes Phil misses Nick’s old place in DC. It wouldn’t have looked like much to people who didn’t know him and couldn’t look past the minimalist nature of it but to Phil it had been a second home. 

Or perhaps a first home. He’d been there enough, preferring it over his own shoe box apartment though, in hindsight, he misses that place too. The Bus is nice for what it is and it’s home now, but it’s not the same as Nick’s place had been. 

For one it was prone to destruction and take over and, aside from that, it didn’t have any of the echoes of lives played out there. 

He’d known Nick’s apartment sowell he’d been able to wander through it with his eyes closed before his first cup of coffee or stumble in with more of his blood on the outside than inside in the dead of night or make his way back to the bedroom or couch or whatever surface was handy even when his vision was full of Nick. 

He’d sat at the small table and listened to Natasha doing check-ins with Nick when she’d been young(er) and new and Nick had worried about pushing her too hard too fast, even though he’d pretended it was just checking in on a potentially dangerous asset. 

He’d done webcam calls and seen Clint, bruised and battered, in the background and nodded sympathetically while Fury bitched, softly, about how useless and accident prone the archer was. 

He’d watched Nick personally and single handedly make every arrangement for Clint and Laura’s marriage and the move to the farm, watched him check every little detail time and again before burying all the information so deep even Phil wouldn’t have been able to find it. 

He’d had drinks with Maria and Jasper in that apartment (and wasn’t that a bitter memory now?) 

He’d spent time on the floor moaning about being old and tired and needing to retire and stop having sex on the floor while Nick smirked at him.  

He remembered Fury opening a package from the farm containing an ugly green and red sweater with ‘World’s best grandpa’ stitched across in offensively glittery wool. 

He’d stood in that apartment after everything had gone wrong with Shield, before he’d known Nick was alive, heart in his throat when he saw the place had been tossed and trashed. Nothing had been left intact; even now he doesn’t know if it had been Hydra or Shield who’d done it, or if there was enough distinction for it to matter. 

Nick moves around more than ever now and Phil knows where he is about 15% of the time, and that may have been generous. There’s work to be done, for both of them, and crossing paths for more than an exchange of information is something of a novelty. They meet in safe houses and motels under assumed names and it’s nothing at all like Nick’s apartment. Phil isn’t sure there will ever be anything like that again. 

But Nick has an ugly neon yellow mug with the 3 Barton kids printed on the side and a newspaper clipping with Natasha’s image from around the time she went in front of congress that he keeps under a false bottom in his bag, tucked away with passports, IDs, and weapons, and it’s oddly sentimental in a way Phil knows he’s lucky to be privy to. 

And those things, he knows, have to be home enough. 


End file.
